


The Hunter

by girl_aflame



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fandom4LLS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2699903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_aflame/pseuds/girl_aflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The baker's daughter, the miner's son, and the rebellion. Panem AU written for Fandom4LLS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hunter

When the mine whistles blow, I always cringe. My fingers still on the dough, my breath catches, and I listen for the pounding of footsteps through town. It’s been six years since the last collapse, but that day felt like Effie Trinket came early and took half of the Seam men to slaughter – and my father.

Loose strands from my braid stick to the back of my neck. Sweat from the ovens dances down the front of my apron. But I'm still waiting.

I know what the Seam kids say – that the merchants could care less, that we’re pampered and tucked away on cold winter nights while they dress in scraps. That the odds are always in our favor each reaping. Sure, there’s some truth to that, but it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten the screams. The pounding of footsteps through the square to the mines. The way all of District 12 went ashen as one by one, the men failed to surface. 

Through the back window, past the pigs and the slop, a man approaches. He's steady, unhurried. No emergency today—

"Katniss." Somehow I'd missed my mother's light tread from the front of the bakery. "How's that cake order coming along?"

"Fine," I lie. My mind's hundreds of meters underground.

Despite the sweltering kitchen, my mother's hand on my shoulder is cool. "You do such beautiful work," she says. 

I almost snort – the real honor goes to my sister, Prim, who’s twelve and far more artistic than I could ever hope to be. Although my mother insists she’s too young to work, my little sister is always pressed up against my side when the latest order comes in, standing on tiptoe and ooh-ing until I hand her the frosting myself. 

I worked before I was twelve, waking up before dawn to fire up the ovens and sweep the floor before flipping over the “open” sign. I had to; we’d lost our father in his rescue mission into the mines. “You’re out of your mind,” Mr. Undersee had told him as my father laced up his heavy boots. “There’s no one left.”

“We don’t know that,” my father had said simply and left, the door still swinging open behind him. 

“Thanks,” I say instead to my mother, turning my attention to the visitor outside. 

I was right to assume it was a man approaching the back door. Peeta Mellark and I may be in the same year at school, but his stern jaw, sinewy arms, and hard eyes reveal a maturity born of growing up Seam.

Not like I've been looking, of course.

The other town girls giggle about the youngest Mellark boy. Broad-shouldered and blond with simmering blue eyes, he looks like he ought to have been born a merchant. His curt words and sharp glances do nothing to stop their swooning. Of course, they'd never dare touch. It would raise eyebrows and drop jaws.

“I have two squirrels,” he announces without fanfare when I open the back door. He smells of pine trees and earth. The worn leather jacket hugs his shoulders closely. I wonder if it belonged to his father. 

When that whistle blew six years ago, Mr. Mellark was down below.

I inspect the squirrels, trying to ignore the way I feel him watching me. He’s judging me, I know it. Same way he rolled his eyes at Madge last year when my best friend expressed her nerves about the reaping. He thinks I’m soft as the dough that I’ve left half-kneaded on the counter. 

“Straight through the eye,” I observe. “How’s two loaves?”

He shrugs. “One’s fine.”

I tuck in the second anyway. The paper bag crinkles as it passes from my hand to his, and his lips quirk in an almost-smile. I’m sure he can feel the lie – the second loaf – but he doesn’t mention it. 

The instant his serious blue eyes meet mine, I want to say something. Show him that we’ve experienced the same loss. But words have never been my specialty, and when he says, “Well, see you next time,” I offer a lame wave to his retreating back. 

...

My mother has taken to staring at walls again.

“Mama?” Prim balances a cup of tea and a leftover piece of sourdough bread. The cup wobbles on the saucer, and so does my sister’s voice. “You must be hungry.”

The small sigh is the only sign that my mother has heard her. 

This happens each February – the anniversary of when the door was left open but our father never walked back in. I’ve pleaded with my mother. Threatened. Stormed around slamming the cabinets in hope that it’d snap her out of it. Nothing yields a response. I don’t like it, but I have to accept it.

Prim hasn’t, though. Tonight, she crawls into my bed and clings to me. “Is she ever going to get better?” she whispers, despite the angry wind that rattles the shutters and surely blocks out our voices. 

“She’ll be all right when spring comes.” Except what if this year, she doesn’t recover? What if she permanently retreats into that silent place?

Prim sniffles. I pull her closer under the blanket. “Promise?”

I swallow. “I promise.”

That's how I wind up picking my way through the outskirts of town into the Seam. 

...

Sure, I could find medication at the apothecary, but I don't want the whispers. It’s been a lean winter, and any indication that things are amiss with the owner of Everdeen’s Bakery won’t help business. Couple that with the impending Quarter Quell announcement, and it’s inevitable that everyone’s looking for a distraction.  
Leaves crack over the frozen ground and I walk faster. I tuck my hood snugly against my face, but it doesn’t push back the shrieking wind. 

They call Aurora Mellark the witch doctor, and I suppose my patronage would in fact be greater cause for whispers. But Prim’s tears against my shoulder when she thought I was asleep keep me moving into the Seam. 

The houses bunch together, roofs slanting, and dogs bark at my presence. So much for subtlety. I’ve no directions save rumor, so I wait in the road and brave the wind. Where to go?

Down the lane, there’s light in one window.

That one. 

I rap my knuckles against the door, and I swear it sags beneath my fist. Then it swings open all at once and there’s Peeta Mellark. His curls are in disarray like he just woke up and his white shirt seems hastily thrown on.

"What are you doing here?" His voice is cutting. “Did you get lost? Town’s that way, Ms. Everdeen. Better move along before your friends start talking.”

Does he think that low of me? Anger flares immediately and I draw myself up as tall as I can. "My mother's sick," I say flatly.

Honesty does the trick. He steps back, leaving the door wide open, and I cross the threshold. The entirety of the house seems to exist in this one room: a small stove in the corner, a table surrounded by chairs of all different styles, a television perched in front of a threadbare couch. Right. Because no matter how little the Capitol cares about District 12, they will always ensure that we can see and hear them. 

Those were the sort of words my father used to say. I keep them to myself. 

Just out of the light, someone snores. It’s enough to make me smile. 

“My mother’s not here,” he says with his back to me. “Emergency childbirth. But I’m familiar with her medications, if you can tell me what’s wrong.”

I’d wanted the Seam doctor for discretion. Instead, Peeta Mellark will roll those sky-blue eyes and pronounce my mother’s ailment a “merchant problem.” 

I brace myself for that moment as he turns to me. “Depression,” I say. “She won’t talk, she won’t eat.”

His brows furrow.

“She gets like this every year,” I say. _Stop talking._ But I can’t – I can’t fight the feeling that I need to explain myself, that I need to earn the respect of the hunter who trades at our back door for one loaf of bread. “The anniversary is always hard for her.” 

The eyebrows lift. “Ah.” His eyes are no longer hard but focused, studying me. “Same for my mother, too. She throws herself into work.”

“My sister, Prim – she doesn’t understand,” I say. “She’s scared. So if you have anything that could help—”

He turns away from me and rummages through a drawer. I watch the way his back muscles tense and relax through his thin shirt. The dim light dances off of his golden curls. 

My heart? It’s thudding hard enough that it might wake whichever Mellark is snoring. For the first time, I understand what Delly and Madge are always elbowing each other about. 

He hands me a small bundle of herbs and explains their preparation, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. I dig into my pocket for coins and he shakes his head at the sum. “No,” he says, “this is plenty.” He presses a coin back into my palm and I fight the urge to close my hand around his and ensnare it there. Am I crazy? I must be. “Thanks,” I say, tugging it away before I do something stupid. 

In the back room, someone says, “Peeta?” 

"Are your brothers home?" I mean it to be friendly -- which, as my mother always reminds me, is not one of my strong suits -- but his eyes darken and the next thing I know, he's ushered me to the doorway.

"You better go." 

“Thank you—”

The door shuts, just like that. 

...

He doesn't come to the back door the next two weeks, and I pretend not to notice.

I have never been a good liar.

When the front door opens, I look up hopefully – but it's Madge, her boots clicking tidily over the wood floor. "Expecting someone else?" she says with a grin. “Gale, maybe?”

I toss my braid over my shoulder in a huff, which only makes her grin wider. Madge and Delly have been harassing me about the butcher’s son ever since Gale and I were partnered for a science project and I smiled at him. _Smiled._ Apparently that’s my tell. 

The Quell announcement is fast approaching, which means that everyone in Twelve is nervous. Madge’s fingers drum an irregular rhythm against the counter as she goes on about how Gale is handsome and just as monosyllabic as me. 

A set of tiny handprints presses up against the front window. When they release, the imprints are gray. Then there’s a nose and two eyes scrutinizing the latest batch of cupcakes – swirling blue and pink flowers for spring. 

“What are you looking at?” Madge twists around, her long curls swishing. “Oh, Seam kid. Poor little guy.”

When I crook my finger, the eyes at the window go wide. The bells tinkle overhead as the kid walks in, clothed head to toe in pants and a shirt that are far too long for him. He looks at me bashfully. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Actually,” I say, “I messed up this batch and I’m going to have to replace them. Would you like one?”

His eyes are just as round as the cupcakes. I slip two into his bag, trying not to think of the two loaves I would sneak Peeta, and send him on his way. “Thank you!” he shouts for the third time from the steps. My mother isn’t pleased when I give away merchandise, but she’s still in recovery and not in the position to criticize my business practices right now. 

At the fringes of the square, a figure stands still. When I look at him full-on, Peeta Mellark keeps walking like he hasn’t missed a step. 

...

_Ping. Ping._

I bolt up in bed. Prim’s not here; as our mother regains her strength, my sister’s fears have abated.

_Ping._

A pebble against the window. 

I peer outside and there’s Peeta, bathed in silver moonlight, staring up at me like I’m his only hope. 

I press my robe against me and sprint down the stairs.

“Katniss,” he says when I open the back door. I’ve never heard him say my name. It sounds like a song on his lips. There’s nothing standoffish about him tonight. His shoulders sag and even his curls seem to droop. “I’m sorry to do this, but I need your help. Do you have any leftover bread that you could spare? Enough to fill a bag?”

I should ask what, and why, and how. Instead, I dig through the box for the loaves that we were to feed the pigs with tomorrow. We don’t speak as I tuck each into the hunting bag that he holds out wide open for me. The smell of pine is stronger on him than ever, like he’s spent hours in the woods this evening but hasn’t found what he was searching for. 

Then I take the jacket he offers me, tug it close, and follow him through the slivers of moonlight and the shadows of trees. My breath comes out in small puffs. I’m barefoot and roots prick against my feet. Perhaps this is a dream and I’ll wake up to the crowing of the Cartwright’s rooster the way I do every other morning. 

"I know you care," he says suddenly. "I've seen you give cookies to kids from the Seam when your mother's not looking. And those little sandwiches filled with chocolate."

“Croissants,” I say automatically. “Cupcakes, too.”

Just outside of his darkened house, he halts. Even the moonlight seems tinged with gray here. “I need to know that I can trust you.” He’s not touching me, but his eyes probe me so deeply that I feel them everywhere. 

This is vital. 

“You can.” I say it as firmly as I would a promise to Prim. 

He holds my gaze for an extra moment. I don’t blink. I don’t breathe. 

“Okay,” he says finally.

When he opens the door, he whistles softly – four notes – and strikes a match. 

There are children. Everywhere. Bundled in blankets, sitting on each other’s laps at the kitchen table, rubbing their eyes. 

All of them turn to Peeta with hope and fear shining in their eyes. 

“My friend Katniss and I brought you something,” he says quietly, and then immediately shushes them when they cheer. But still, that doesn’t shut down the light on their faces as small hands reach out for bread. 

I smile – I can’t help it – but dread fills my stomach and won’t quit, even after each child is nibbling on bread and murmuring contentedly. 

What the hell is going on?

One grabs my hand. “Thank you, Katniss,” she says, green eyes locked on me, and the others join her in chorus. “Are you gonna come with us?”

I look to Peeta for answers, but he’s across the kitchen, ruffling a kid’s red hair and smiling broader than I’ve ever seen him. 

“Depends on where we’re going,” I say playfully, channeling the voice I used for baby Prim.

“Thirteen,” says a girl with haunting dark eyes. “We’ll get to go to school there.”

My smile freezes. The voices overlap each other: 

“We won’t have to work in the fields.”

“They won’t send us out in the lobster boats.”

“We can’t be reaped if we’re there.”

“And no more Hunger Games.”

What do I expect – Peeta to jump in and say, “Stop fooling around, kids”? To say, “Very funny – now meet my nieces and nephews”? No. He stares at me with fire in his blue eyes. 

He’s smuggling them to District 13. All of them. 

I grip the back of a chair to keep myself from falling over.

He’s at my side a moment later, whispering as the children talk amongst themselves. “It was Haymitch’s idea originally,” he says.

“Abernathy? How can he think when he’s drunk all of the time?”

“Haymitch says that long before the Dark Days, there was an underground railroad where enslaved people traveled to freedom," Peeta says. “He has some…information that this year’s Quell will be more brutal than ever.”

“Why are you helping him?” The words come out sharply. “You could get killed for this, Peeta. And they won’t just shoot you in the square and make it quick and painless.” My father’s rants come back to me in a rush. “They’ll bring you to the Capitol, drag it out on television.” 

He holds my gaze. “Just like the Hunger Games.”

He’s right. The shock of it silences me. 

“It’s not right, Katniss. None of us have a choice. Nobody to protect us. We’re just a piece in Snow’s Games, and unless we do something to fight it, we always will be.”

We can never win. Any of us. 

The next night, when the first pebble strikes my window, I already have a bag of the day’s bread packed. 

...

Every night, there’s a different group of children. “We have rebellion members along the way,” Peeta explains as we cut through the trees that are quickly becoming familiar to me. “One will take them to another until they get to Thirteen. We rotate who does it so that if anyone gets caught, they’ll only have one night’s worth of information.”

“Who are they?”

“People from Thirteen. Former victors. Government workers. Sometimes it’s the good guys pretending to be the bad guys if things get messy.”

I shiver. “Why you?” 

He laughs quietly. “I know these woods better than anyone in Twelve. Plus, Haymitch knew my father and his…political leanings. He had a pretty good feeling that I’d say yes.”

“You must have had a good feeling that I’d say yes, too.”

Peeta reaches out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I hold my breath. I’ve been doing a lot of that these days. “I wasn’t sure,” he says quietly, “but I knew I had to take the chance.”

In the mornings, Prim rebraids my hair and asks why I look so tired. Madge looks at me with concern, but when I offer the excuse that I’m worried, she takes it at face-value and agrees. We are worried, both of us, though not precisely for the same reasons. 

It's getting harder to feed everyone, especially when we barely have enough to eat ourselves. Peeta offers to take me into the woods to show me how to hunt. "In case," he says without finishing the thought, but I know what he’s not saying. In case he's caught. But that is unthinkable.

Somehow, in the intervening days, Peeta Mellark has gone from the stoic hunter with two squirrels to someone with secrets that could get us both killed. To someone I trust with my life. 

I swallow back the fear and agree to it anyway. If the next winter grips us as tightly as this one did, it wouldn’t hurt to have a way to find fresh meat. 

When Peeta arrives at the door the next afternoon, I wipe my hands on my apron and call out to Prim to mind the front for a bit. (She’s better at it than I am anyway, always smiling and showing off our latest desserts.) 

As soon as the lights of the town have vanished behind us, obscured by the forest and beyond the fence, he pushes me against a tree and his lips sear into mine. Without hesitation, I wrap my legs around him and he moans into my mouth. His hardness presses against me. 

We sink down, down toward the earth, our lips never separating. 

...

When I return to the bakery, red-cheeked and lips swollen, my mother looks at me sharply. “You were almost late.”

“For what?” I’m still seeing stars. I’m still feeling those confident hunter’s hands teasing over me until I cry out—

“The announcement.” 

Shit. I paste on a bright smile for Prim, who looks just as terrified as I feel. “Can’t wait,” I say dryly. My mother turns away, but not before I see her bite back her amusement. 

The television hisses, crackles, comes to life. There will be no electrical shortage in District 12 tonight.

Not like this afternoon. I blush at the thought. 

The anthem sends trills of fear up my spine. Not once have I heard it played for good. Then President Snow’s face fills the screen, holding a golden card. There’s preamble, a brief overview of the Games that he delivers without so much as a blink, his eyes penetrating the screen like he’s staring right at me. Like he knows where I go every night and for what purpose.

Slowly, he opens the card and begins to read. “For the seventy-fifth Games, as a reminder that it is the courage and sacrifice of our youth that will be Panem’s future, only children the age of twelve will be eligible for the reaping.”

Twelve. 

Prim. 

I’m out of the bakery before President Snow’s snake-like lips have closed, before I can hear the Capitol audience applauding.

The Peacemakers part when they see me sprinting toward the Seam. Darius offers a halfhearted “Where’s the fire, Ms. Everdeen?” but doesn’t pursue me. Maybe he’s horrified, too. How does he feel about being part of Snow’s system that crushes the weak and silences the strong for all of time?

When I burst through the door, I slam straight into Peeta’s solid chest. “I was just on my way to you,” he breathes into my shoulder. 

I’m shaking harder than the coldest winter night. "We have to get Prim out of here."

“There’s a chance—”

“I can’t take that chance.”

After a moment, I feel him nod. His arms are wrapped around me, warm and steady. In another world, I would feel safe. 

But not this one. 

...

The plan is hasty, risky, and the only chance we’ve got. When I tug my mother aside to explain, her gaze goes blank and I think that I’ve lost her this time for good. Her lips open and close soundlessly. 

When she finally speaks, she says, “It’s the only way.”

I wrap her in an embrace, surprising both of us. 

“But good luck convincing her,” she adds. “If there’s anything you two have in common, it’s your stubbornness.” 

I find Prim outside hurling sticks at the fence post. The bottom of her shirt is untucked and flops each time she throws. The sticks bounce to the ground. “What are you doing, little duck?”

“I’m practicing,” she says with a brave face, but her bottom lip quivers. 

I don’t need to ask for what. “Your name’s only in there once. The odds couldn’t be better.” 

She sets her jaw. “I need to be ready. Just in case.”

“What if…” I need to do this carefully. I can’t afford to have her call out in surprise, risk someone overhearing. “What if there was the chance that you couldn’t be reaped?”

My sister looks at me sharply, and suddenly I wonder if she’s heard me slipping out the back door all of these nights. “It’s not legal,” she says with finality. “I have to be at the reaping.” With that, she picks up another stick and resumes her training. 

No, I have never been good with words. 

Peeta and I plot with our heads resting together, whispering in the patches of trees between town and the Seam. The cover will be that Prim has fallen ill and nobody knows what’s wrong with her. Aurora will mix up something to help her sleep so that we can transport her without protest. I swallow back my disgust at the idea of poisoning and deceiving my sister, even if it’s to save her life. 

According to Peeta, Haymitch agrees to produce paperwork that claims Prim’s medical condition has required her to be transferred to a hospital in District 4 because said condition could impact the health of the citizens of our district. By the time the Peacemakers examine the paperwork the day of the reaping, she’ll be safely in Thirteen. I hope. “Why would he do that?” I ask Peeta. Because there’s no way he could be doing that for all of the children that pass through the Mellark house every evening. 

“He knew your father, too,” Peeta says simply. 

When the night comes, my mother can’t hold back her tears. I’m certain that Prim has us figured out as she eyes me over our mother’s shoulder. When I offer them both tea, she sniffs the cup suspiciously. “You never cook.”

“I do so. I’m a baker’s daughter, for crying out loud.”

“I’m the one who does most of your baking lately.”

“And frosting,” my mother says with the ghost of a smile.

“When did you get so sassy, little duck?” I hold out the cup. “Drink up.”

I pray with every sip that this will work. 

...

As soon as my sister has slumped to her side, a peaceful smile toying at her lips, my mother flees the room. I’ve stockpiled the kitchen with the tea for depression, because even the best outcome means we don’t see Prim again for a long time…or ever again. But that means she’ll have a future, and that’s more than District 12 can give her. 

Peeta gazes down at my sister and presses an affectionate kiss to her forehead. He picks up my sister’s limp body and although I know she’s breathing, that she’s fine, I can’t help but think of her being lifeless in the arena. This is the only way.

There are more children in the Mellark house than I’ve ever seen, the air filled with nervous whispers and the feeling that if anyone bumps into a wall, the whole structure will collapse. “From District 2,” Peeta murmurs in my ear. “Budding Careers. They faked a fire at one of the training schools to get them out.”

The thought makes my heart swell – that even the Capitol’s favored districts know the Games are wrong. 

Peeta faces the children, taking my hand. “All right, does everyone have everything?” Nods all around. “If you get separated from the group, what’s the signal?”

Hands raise eagerly. “Cato,” says Peeta, because he finds a way to learn all of their names. “Can you demonstrate?”

The young boy puckers his lips and whistles four notes. “Very good,” Peeta compliments him, and the boy beams with pride. In another world, Peeta would make a great father. Strong and compassionate. Stern and loving—

Four sharp knocks on the door. The room hushes. A small hand grips my right hand and Peeta’s hand freezes around my left. 

Then the door is thrown wide open and we’re staring down gun barrels and blazing lights. 

"Put your hands up,” a voice commands. 

Without hesitation, we lift our eyes to the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Let's be friends on Tumblr -- I'm girl-aflame over there. :)


End file.
